One of the really positive things that is happening in the world of Toronto land use planning is that the minimum scale of development that is permitted as-of-right continues to grow. We've gone from fourplexes to 6-storey apartments, and now we're talking about mid-rise buildings (6-11 storeys) and even some tall buildings (12 storeys or more).
What this ultimately means is being able to build without a rezoning application. That means no site specific negotiation, and no fighting over whether the building should be 32 meters tall or 30.5 meters tall with a 2.4 meter stepback because of shadowing concerns on someone's heritage-designated garden gnome. It means getting under construction sooner.
Here are some of the specific ideas being reviewed:
Expand the number of streets designated as "Avenues" throughout Toronto (Avenues are a defined term and where we have decided that mid-rise buildings should go)
New Official Plan policies that would encourage more mid-rise buildings on Avenues
Eliminate the rear angular plane requirement (currently a mid-rise performance standard); this is expected to produce ~30% more homes in your typical mid-rise development
Increase as-of-right permitted heights to 6-11 storeys (the city estimates that this will unlock ~61,000 additional homes)
Introduce "transition zones" between Avenues and low-rise neighborhoods, which could then accommodate things like low-rise towns and apartments up to 4 storeys (it's worth noting that transition zones were initially part of Toronto's mid-rise performance standards but then got removed for some reason)
This is meaningful progress. Let's enact and keep going.
Pat Hanson of gh3* is absolutely right with her comment, here, about why we are seeing more windowless bedrooms being built in Toronto:
In much the same way, some of Toronto’s development policies encourage windowless bedrooms. “I don’t think it’s driven by cost,” says architect Pat Hanson, a founding principal of gh3* and a member of Waterfront Toronto’s Design Review Panel. “It’s driven a lot by building forms. Where you find a lot of these inboard bedrooms is in the mid-rise type.” The requirements to step back mid-rises on an angular plane, she adds, forces the developers to populate their projects with very deep units.
This condition is being driven by building forms and by overall housing affordability. Here is a post



